Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Here Come the Faeries

I'm convinced that New Albany can become a "magical" place, but I don't hold a candle to 3rd District council member Steve Price.

He's among those on the council who, in an effort to retain a money-sucking sanitation operation, are floating the idea that this little river city will soon become the home to garbage-truck faeries, who'll sprinkle us with six or more haulers if only we continue to draw down every last dime of the sewer board reserves to subsidize residential waste-hauling.

No wonder he's against Scribner Place. We'll become a tourist mecca when the world finds out about our magical faeries!

Word's still out on whether Price backs the "free-for-all" plan, too. No, it's not free, for anybody. It would have you dealing directly with one hauling company, while your neighbor deals with another, and the guy across the street struggles to get his car out of the drive because it's blocked by the half-dozen or more garbage trucks jockeying for position.

Plans like these show precisely the level of thinking of Price and his associated gang of time-servers.

Hey, here's an idea! Why don't we all band together and negotiate as a city to get the best deal? We could pay one fee to the city, who would then be responsible for holding the selected contractor to account.

Why don't we eliminate the annual deficit that's headed for seven figures, unload the dead weight of the truck leases, and hold the line on rate increases until 2007? Why don't we stabilize the bleeding that is sure to prevent sewer maintenance and upgrades? Why don't we avoid the fines for letting the reserves in our utility enterprise slip below the minimums?

Nah! That's just crazy talk. What ever was I thinking?

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